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All posts for the month December, 2010

Tron: Legacy‘s soundtrack was amazing. Daft Punk has always been a favorite for me, and the soundtrack certainly has their unique sound. I also enjoyed the scene that featured them – it was a nice strong nod to their work. I loved this movie. Especially since I had watched the original Tron just a few days before. Unfortunately, the original is no longer in production. I hope when Legacy comes out on DVD, they do a combo pack. That would be awesome!

Inception‘s soundtrack is also great. I’ve watched it twice now this vacation, and Hans Zimmer is second only to John Williams, in my opinion. Hans likes to do bigger, grander themes and isn’t afraid to use synthesizers, etc.

As I’m typing this, my Dad and I are watching The Expendables. The music has been pretty good as well.

Yesterday, some family from my Mom’s side stopped by and everyone went out 4-wheelin’. It was pretty fun. My cousin and I rode ATVs and my wife and all the parents rode in a pair of Jeeps. Here’s a shot of me on the ATV:

Vroom, vrrom!

My wife got her hands on my Uncle’s digital SLR, and being the photography nut she is, came up with some pretty cool shots. This one was my favorite:

Objects in mirror may be closer than they appear…

That’s my Aunt Nancy you can see in the Jeep. I’m in the lead ATV, and you can sort of see my Cousin behind me.

I know I didn’t really talk about my models, but it’s been a week, and I figured I needed to post something. I have gotten a bit done on them, and I’ll post some pictures in a few days when I can get a bit more done. Having lots of family in town was a nice surprise and I spent time with them rather than paint (as is right around the holidays, ya know?).

So, I’ve set some (hopefully) realistic goals for the holiday. I’m basically trying to get the ‘jacks and solo done this week, and then tackle my two units next week.

I picked up some spray paint at Meijer (a department store), and didn’t realize I had picked up an enamel paint. It didn’t do so hot on the first coat, and the second coat went ok, but my second can was mis-labeled and was a gloss. So, I made a run to Menards (a hardware store), and found a big can of flat black sandable primer. Oh, so much better.

Here’s the primed result. Sadly, with essentially four coats of paint, some fine detail was lost. Ah well. Eventually these will be stripped and painted again.

Once they had a chance to cure (they stop smelling like spray paint when they’re done – typically 24 hours), I started basecoating. I’m attempting to adhere to the speedpainting rules:

Do everything of one color at the same time, don’t go back and “repair” any mistakes.

While on each color, do everything with your biggest brush first, then switch to the smaller brush for detail. Don’t swap brushes on every model.

Watch movies while you paint and take lots of small breaks.

With that in mind, I started with the metallics. I don’t have a particular reason, other than I know I want lots of blue, and so I figured if I did my metallics first, then anything that was left could be blue! I did anything that would be iron or brass in Boltgun Metal. Then, I did two coats of Dwarf Brass for anything that would be bronze. Lastly, all my blues got two coats of Enchanted Blue. There are a few parts I haven’t decided on yet, but the lion’s share of the basecoating is finally done! Yay!

You’ll notice that the faces and hair on the two human models are done. I wanted to get them done to see how they would come out. I like the idea that if you mess up the face, you can always just re-spray the model and start again. That only works though, if you haven’t painted anything else on the model. I think they turned out pretty darn well for how little work went into them:

The faces were a basecoat of Elf Flesh, a Gryphonne Sepia wash, and then a highlight of Elf Flesh. How easy!

There’s lots of work to do yet, but this is how I prefer to get models done. Get paint on everything, and they tidy up the mistakes.

So, I’ve been slacking recently. I don’t have any painting done. It’s ok though. I’ve been preparing for the Holiday break. See, I’ll be gone for about 2 weeks, and I plan on painting an army in that time. I’ll be taking my Cygnar models home for the holidays, and painting them up (or trying to).

Poke ’em inna eye!

Over the past few days, I’ve been building my Cygnar force. I got to assemble the new(ish) plastic battlebox, and I gotta say, the models look pretty sweet. I replaced the rod in the Lancer’s uh… lance? with aluminum tube since the stock one was bent fairly badly. I still need to build rivets into it’s base, but otherwise it’s pretty plain. I know most weapons have some embellishments, but I just don’t have the confidence, nor time to do something fancy.

I may do something with the lance I may not. /sigh.

You’ll notice the shield arm is sticky-tac’d on. It’ll get glued after the body is painted – I don’t want to have to figure out how to get a brush in there…

I also magnetized the Heavy ‘jack. It’s from the battlebox, so I don’t have a Cyclone, but what I do have is…

They’re pretty simple. I fill in the gap with whatever I can (spare GS, the tabs I’ve cut off the models, etc) and then score the base with a nice sharp hobby knife. I cut my thumb twice, so if you’re looking to so it exactly how I did, keep that in mind. I then apply a liberal layer of straight Elmer’s White Glue, and cover in a mix of three different ballasts. I’m using a blend of fine, medium and coarse in order to get a nice rocky rubble feel. Once that has had about 2 hours to semi-harden, I liberally coat the base with 50/50 glue and water. It helps seal the rocks together.

So, that’s what I’ve been working on. Also, my priest is level 84, and growing. Yay for all the rested XP I got while I worked on models tonight. Time to do dailies before bed.

I leave you with the other Cygnar posterboy (He and Stryker did Abercrombie ads together, and use the same hair gel), the Journeyman Warcaster!

So, in my quest to find lists for the armies I like, I’ve made an Army Lists page, containing lists for my forces, organized by faction, then by ‘caster. I like each faction for what they do best: Cygnar for shooty, Khador for big ‘jacks with big axes, Trolls for in your face fury, Legion for being dragons (reason enough, right?) and Skorne because, well, they have the coolest looking shields in the game (Sword Knights come a close second…).

Anyway, check out the lists and let me know what you think. That page is a WIP, and is likely to change often as I tweak lists, try lists and paint models. Hopefully, with each list I’ll have a picture of my models, all painted up nice and ready to wage war!